Mike Chinn (Starblazer)

FORGOTTEN FANTASY FICTION – WITH PICTURES

I've always thought D C Thomson's STARBLAZER picture digest was one of the country's best-kept secrets. Easily available in Scotland, once it crossed the border it became increasingly difficult to find; and by the time it reached London, it was nothing more than a rumour. Which was a shame since – all personal bias aside – it evolved into a pretty decent comic. Writers such as Grant Morrison cut their teeth there, along with artists who've since gone on to bigger and brighter things: Alcatena, Casanovas, et al.

At first the magazine was strongly in the grip of STAR WARS fever, every issue strictly SF, with lots of space battles involving chunky star ships. My own involvement started in 1982, with #64: The Exterminator (not my original title!). I introduced an uncaring world to one Glave Questor (honest – would I lie?), a young crewman on a ship who is terribly injured during one of the aforementioned space-battles. From that point on he becomes a mercenary – but instead of money (or credits), his payment was technology: increasingly sophisticated and deadly. Sounds pretty ropy, I know – but I had Alcatena doing the artwork … so nyah nyah!

The Argentinean artist illustrated my next offering too: #141 Spaceroamer (also not my title). This was an altogether more baroque story, involving pirates, ludicrously advanced technology, and lots of silly costumes. Alcatena also seemed to be having a ball (at least I hope he was) since his artwork was complex, delicate, and each panel had more weird aliens than the STAR WARS Mos Eisley cantina scene. Looking back, the whole thing feels slightly camp, too – all harlequin costumes and Regency fashions … years before The Fifth Element!

Issue 200 was a turning point (for me, anyway). Some issues back, the magazine had changed its Space Fiction Adventure in Pictures subtitle to the slightly more elegant Fantasy Fiction in Pictures. Editor Bill McLoughlin had asked me: "Can you write fantasy, at all?" Well – slightly more easily than space opera, anyway. STARBLAZER 200 was entitled Demon Sword, and was the first in a briefly lived saga about the ruling family of Anglerre: the d'Annemarc dynasty. Stepping firmly back to my early Michael Moorcock influences, I concocted a tale about young Prince Veyne, leading his people in a war against the sorcerous hordes of Suvethia. When Veyne is mortally wounded his personal physician and (very Merlin-inspired) sorcerer, Myrdan, discovers the only thing that can save the prince – and his realm – is the magical blade Cerastes. But Cerastes is cursed – fated to one-day take the life of the very person it saves (told you it was pure Moorcock!). The story that followed – involving lost cities, strange voyages, gods and curses pretty much set the pattern for the stories that followed. Rune War (#224), Godstone (#231), Sun Prince (#250) and The Triune Warrior (#271). Once again I was blessed to have my scripts brought to (increasingly hallucinogenic) life by Alcatena – who would take every bizarre, otherworldly realm I'd described and make it even weirder! I typed up insane, impossible scenes … "Illustrate that!" I'd chuckle ... He would.

Three generations of d'Annemarc heroes were covered: Veyne, his father Iagon (in Rune War, which was a prequel to Demon Sword), and Veyne's own son Kurdis – himself half-magical since his mother was a demonness, and he became fused with the avatar of the vengeance-seeking sword Cerastes at the end of Godstone. If this sounds like pure soap opera, it was; worse, I'd probably have gone on writing it if the magazine hadn't been cancelled ten years ago!

By the time The Triune Warrior was written, I was pushing a bit – seeing how far D C Thomson would let me go. Characters were getting much longer chunks of dialogue, the weirdness factor was just about to go through the roof … so I wrote a story where Prince Kurdis meets up with a character from an earlier, totally unrelated STARBLAZER story – Garyn from #248 Tales of the Otherworld – another from a short story of mine that had seen print in FANTASY TALES Vol.12 #6 – Garban Quenéed – and shoved them all up against very Lovecraftian things from before time. And I got away with it.

But I wasn't just writing Fantasy (although there were a couple of stand-alone, thud'n'blunder issues with the usual obsessions: devious deities, subverted reality … as much gore and nastiness as I could sneak past the censor…). Along with sticking in my own, world-weary contribution to the Mikal R Kayn saga (a twenty-third century blind private eye created by Grant Morrison, very much in the Philip Marlowe mould and living in New Moscow), I found myself doing slapstick. One Saturday I received a letter from Bill McLoughlin which, along with other business, commented 2000AD was publishing an SF spoof of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN ... so how did I fancy doing something similar with a stupid robot and the Western(s) of my choice. Thus was the Robot Kid born. A clapped-out droid, who'd spent most of his life serving in a movie theatre, winds up on a very Western-style planet (R-1Z-ONA … and I refuse to take the blame for that!) instead of the sheriff they'd sent for. Two more saw print – The Return of the Robot Kid (Kung Fu movies) #232, and The Robot Kid Strikes Back! (Rambo) #273. Sadly, two more which I wrote never saw print – the magazine getting cancelled due to poor sales (poor circulation, more like!) – and naturally, they were my favourite two of the lot. Provisionally entitled The Prisoner of Zante and Robat, that were, respectively, an affectionate send up of just about every swashbuckling movie you can name, and the first Tim Burton Batman movie.

The Robot Kid Strikes Back! appeared in 1990. It was the last script of mine to be published. A few issues later, STARBLAZER vanished forever.

D C Thomson has long been pretty traditional in their output; I guess STARBLAZER was a bit of a departure for them. If it had been more successful, there were all kinds of plans: large-format, full colour comics aimed at a more mature audience (and sold through specialist outlets like Forbidden Planet and Nostalgia & Comics). One was intended to be primarily Fantasy, another a Mikal R Kayn feature (to be called, God help us, Red Eye!)

I expect there are a few fans who remember the magazine – maybe even the odd collector. I understand the renowned artist Alan Hunter is quite a fan. Sadly, he's probably one of a dwindling company.

Publishing's a cruel business.

All Starblazer material inclusive of illustrations, text and front cover art is copyright D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.

Used by kind permission.